He is Risen!

Izzy's third Easter was great. We started the day off with a great church service. And this was the first Sunday that Izzy walked right into her class without any tears. Hubs and I just looked at each other and then turned to run before she changed her mind. I love that she is starting to enjoy church and that's she is finally comfortable in her class.

This is the Easter craft she made at church. So sweet!
Love my girl!

We walked outside to find that our first flower of the year had bloomed. The cool thing is that these flowers were planted as a gift from Griff's coworkers after we lost Lily. They keep coming back, and how appropriate that a bloom would appear on Easter Sunday. He is risen indeed!

After church, Izzy took a nice nap, and then we headed to my Aunt and Uncle's house for Easter dinner and, of course, an egg hunt. Here is my sweet girl with her Papa.

All the cousins before the big hunt. Izzy is a bit of a drifter, so poor Mallory is always stuck with the task of keeping up with her for photos.

She had a blast. She wasn't so much in a hurry to move from egg to egg. Once she picked one up, she wanted it opened immediately.

Lane and Izzy checking out their loot from Papa and Meme.

Happy Easter!

Blog? What Blog?

It's no secret that I've been a touch lazy with the blog writing lately. Here's my attempt to redeem myself in a random and unorderly fashion. You're welcome.

1. Two of my favorite stores, Ann Taylor Loft and The Limited, were both running 40% off everything sales last weekend, and I may or may not have went a bit crazy. We had just dropped Izzy off with her Pop-Pop and Nana, and we had about an hour to kill before we met up with friends for dinner, so I flew through both stores at lightning speed and picked up these pretty little things:

got this tunic in white

love this sweater - the colors are reversed on mine

Still on the fence about this dress - whatcha think??


I got this comfy little top in coral.

love these shorts - perfect compromise between "mom" shorts and hoochie mama

I promise this shirt looks way cuter in person. I'm usually not a fan of "bat wing" type shirts, but I liked this one when I tried it on.

And I got this in white. The Limited could really use some help with their internet advertising. Their clothes look so much better in person...

I got all of this and another black top from Loft, but I couldn't find a picture for it. Can you imagine what kind of damage I could have done if Griff hadn't been waiting impatiently in the car?

2. Since my last post about my quest to lose 10 pounds, I've lost about 4. Yes, 4 pounds in 2 months. Couldn't be more frustrated. I've been working out almost every day and loosely following the Weight Watchers Points Plus plan. Well, it's on now. We have 3 little trips planned for this summer, the first of which is in less than 2 months, and all of which will require swimsuits. This is an emergency. The workouts will be stepped up, and every morsel of food that passes my lips will be counted. Hubs is on board too, and I'm currently trying not to hate him for the fact that he gets almost double the amount of WW points that I get. Jerk.

3. I've become a teensy bit obsessed with this video. I just love this hymn, and I've never heard it sound better than this. Homegirl can sang. Yes, I said sang. I've been a Carrie fan since her AI days, but this makes me like her so much more. And if she could share with the world the secret to getting her fabulous legs, I'd love to hear it.




4. I want to know which one of you told my baby girl she could grow up. I feel like she's 2 going on 16. Her attitude personality is shining through these days. She is definitely an opinionated little lady. I haven't a clue where she got that. Good thing she's cute. Look at that sweet little ponytail. We're toast.

5. You have NO idea how much trouble I had with this stupid post. Apparently the video was throwing everything off. Stupid blogger.

Izzy Lately

I realize I've let you guys down. If there is one thing you should know as a blogger, it's your audience, and 99.9% of my audience comes here for one thing: Izzy. It's been awhile since I've posted about my sweet girl, so here are some recent pictures of her. This should tide you over for another month or so...

Facebook Parenting

Hubs just sent me this hilarious link, and I had to share. I'm actually supposed to give credit to Blayne. Clearly they are working hard today. I may not have this parenting thing down just yet, but anytime I doubt myself, I can just look at these facebook conversations and know that it could always be worse... http://www.someecards.com/2011/04/08/the7-best-examples-of-horrific-and-embarrassing-parenting-on-facebook

Thirty Shmirty

I've been a member of the 30's club for almost a month now, but I'm just now getting around to this post. I actually handled turning thirty better than I thought I would, and so far, so good...

My birthday fell on a Friday, but we celebrated on Saturday. Griff did a great job with my birthday plans this year. He planned a fun day for me and a few friends, and it was supposed to be a surprise until my plans were going to interfere with the surprise, and I unintentionally forced him to spill the beans. Oopsie. :-/ So, on Saturday morning Griff took Izzy to spend the day with his parents before he went to work, and I met my girlfriends for manis, pedis, lunch, and shopping. Fun fun!!

Katie talked us all into buying Sanuk sandals. If you haven't tried them on, you must! The soles are made out of yoga mats and they feel like heaven. We found a Griff-size flip flop on the way out and had to get a picture with it. On Saturday night, a big group of us went to out to dinner for my birthday dinner. Things were all fine and dandy, and then out comes the cake... My super talented ex-friend (kidding), Tracy, made this: Do you think he's laughing at the rocking sweater I'm wearing or my killer mullet? I can't put all of the blame on Tracy though. After all, this must have been Griff's idea, and my sister worked to get the picture from my mom, so as you can see, there is a long list of people to blame. Paybacks are hell, people. Watch your back.

After dinner drinks. Good times.

As an added bonus, I scored some great gifts this year. My sweet baby girl gave me a gift certificate for a massage, and Griff listened very well this year and gave me shopping money. Other gifts from family and friends included money, another massage certificate, a year of candles gift set, some sweet new kicks, cute pajamas, a fun wine glass, a bottle of bubbly, a new scarf, some super cute clothes, some yummy smelling Bath and Body Works stuff, a really pretty necklace, and a Starbucks gift card. I'd say it was a great birthday! Bring it on, 30's. You don't scare me.

Little Lady Turns Two

My baby is two years old. How did this happen? I think I can honestly say that these were the quickest 2 years of my life. I can also say that they have been the best 2 years of my life. She is just the sweetest little thing with the best personality. I am constantly asking Griff, "Is it just me, or is she the cutest baby you've ever seen???" Of course, he always agrees with me.

As I've posted recently, her vocabulary has really taken off lately, and she is just a little sponge these days. We saw Izzy's neurologist for a check-up last month, and he was very pleased with her progress. He said to her, "How'd you get to be this way? There are so many reasons why you shouldn't be doing this well. " I think we all know how she got to be this way. She has a rockstar mom. Kidding!! Not a day goes by that we don't thank our God for all of the obstacles He has carried Izzy thru. I think it is safe to say that Isabelle is a normal 2-year-old with normal 2-year-old behavior - good and bad. ;-)

We had her birthday party at The Little Gym this year, and she had a blast. She goes there once a week, so naturally, she ran around like she owned the place.

There wasn't much in the way of decorations, but I did make this little banner.

I made way too many cookies, as usual, and mom helped me decorate them. For our first actual attempt at decorating sugar cookies, I think they turned out pretty cute, especially from a distance. Upon closer inspection, you might guess that Izzy decorated them. :-/

The party favor bags. I told myself I wasn't even going to mess with party favors this year, and then I saw this adorable idea for favor bags online, and there you have it. Hubs was an excellent helper with these bags.

And here is the most adorable cake on the planet, made by the very talented Tracy Agren. It tasted even better than it looked, if you can believe that. We ended up with some leftover cake (even after sending family home with some), and after picking at it all morning following the party, I told hubs to get it out of the house before I made myself sick. Izzy cried as he took it away, and I may have shed a tear or two, too.
My big girl! Thanks for the adorable shirt, Auntie K! And thanks for the super cute piggy bows, Becca!

She's finally getting comfortable on the big balance beam. When we first started, she wouldn't even put her feet down on it.

Loving being the center of attention!

She can do the little beam all by herself. Show off!

Bubbles!

Her favorite snacks - strawberries, blueberries, and goldfish crackers

Here she is clapping for everyone as they sing happy birthday to her. Such a sweetie pie.

Mmm....cake
Gothic baby

We decided not to open gifts at the party so that the kids would have extra playtime in the gym.

Kinda glad we did. This is what a 2-year-old opening gifts looks like.

Happy birthday to the best girl I know!

New Words

We have seen a lot of progress with Izzy's speech in the past week. She has a few new words to add to her previous list:

Meme

Nana

Pop-Pop

KK

Baby

Ball

Poo-Poo (didn't know she knew this one, and I asked, "Izzy, did you go poo-poo?" Sure enough, she repeated me. ;-)

Fly

Night Night

Dog

Star

Go

Choo Choo, which she pronounces as caca :-/

Car (sometimes Go-Go)

There are probably a few more I can't remember right now. It's so exciting to see her finally figuring out this whole speaking thing! She started calling us by name in the last week, too, which is just precious. In the past, she would name us if asked, but now she just goes around saying, mama and dada all day without having to be asked or prompted. She mostly says mama, to be honest. And she especially likes to call for mama when she is unhappy or from her bed when she wakes up. I have to say, hearing mama from her sweet little voice has definitely improved my response time. ;-) I'm woking on teaching her how to say "I'm two" in time for her big birthday next week!

Fingers crossed that these videos work...